“He already told me when and where to make the exchange.”
She blinked. “Well, then, you just have to tell Mercer. His men will be there, and the trap will be sprung.” A relieved smile spread over her lips. This agent business wasn’t as hard as she’d thought. “He’s caught himself.”
Drew shook his head. Then he walked slowly toward her. He stopped less than a foot away. She could feel the warmth of his body surrounding her. “It’s not that simple, Doc.”
When he said “Doc,” the word dripped and rolled. It sent a shiver over her.
He called her doc the way some men might call their girlfriends sweetheart or baby.
Emotion was breaking through his mask once more, and she sure was glad to see the real Drew. “Then tell me how it’s harder.”
“If he picks the location, if we go by what he says, then we could walk right into a place that Devast has already got wired. He’ll blow it up and kill every agent there.”
“All while he stays back, nice and protected,” Rachel added. She’d taken a seat on the old couch.
Dylan stood close to her. He always seemed to be close to Rachel. “We don’t go by Devast’s rules. We make him come to us.”
“So...what? You’re saying that if we go by his orders, the guy probably wouldn’t even be at the exchange?” She’d just have a bomb waiting for her?
Drew shook his head. “I’m saying we aren’t ready for the meeting yet. I have to guarantee that Devast will be there. To do that, I have to make the trade personal.”
She glanced toward the burglar bars. “Did he know we were in the hotel?” Was that why they’d rushed out so desperately?
“He had my phone number. Devast called me and deliberately kept me on the line long enough for a trace.” Drew shrugged. “It was a safe bet. Only a fool would have stayed put then. I wasn’t just going to wait for the hotel to explode beneath my feet.”
She swallowed. No, Drew wasn’t a fool. And she wasn’t exactly game for anything exploding beneath her feet.
Make this personal. “What are Devast’s weaknesses?” Tina asked as she tried to figure out a plan. “He has to have them, right? Everyone has a weakness.”
“If he has one,” Rachel sighed, “then we haven’t found it.”
Drew’s phone rang.
Tina glanced down at it. He’d placed it on the table when they’d entered the safe house.
“Sydney’s monitoring his calls. If that’s Devast, she’ll get a lock on him,” Rachel said, eagerness pushing in her voice.
Drew picked up the phone. His face didn’t so much as change expressions.
“Syd will get her trace,” Tina said, “but Devast will get one on us, too.” That was how it worked. But...was that what the agents wanted? “Is this some game of see who hits the fastest?”
“I told you, I have to make this more personal for him.” Drew pushed the button to activate the speaker on his phone. “Calling me again already?” She was surprised by the mocking tone of his voice.
Laughter filled the room. Chill bumps rose on Tina’s arms.
“You left the hotel so fast, Agent Lancaster. Did you truly think that you could run from me?”
Drew’s gaze focused on Tina.
“I’m a step ahead of you,” that hard voice said. “Your bars won’t keep her safe. And if you won’t give her to me, then I’ll just take her.”
Your bars.
He knew where they were.
Rachel had leaped to her feet. Her gun was out and she was at the window on the right, carefully searching the area outside.
“Doctors, police officers, even agents...they can all be bought.”
Drew hadn’t taken his eyes off Tina. “You haven’t named the right price for me,” Drew said. “You haven’t bought me.”
Silence.
“Why pay, when I can get her for free now? Thank you for showing me exactly where she was.”
“Come on and try to take her.” There was no fear in Drew’s voice at all. Just a dark challenge. “Let’s see how fast your men die. I took ’em out before, and I’ll do it again.”
“We’ll see...”
“Yeah, we will. You want her—then you’re going to have to track me yourself.” A deliberate taunt.
Then the call was over, just like that. Dylan had gone to the back of the house, and Drew closed in on Tina.
“Does he know? He said ‘bars’ as if he could see where we were.” She fisted her shaking fingers. “And when am I going to get a weapon? When?” If Devast was about to come storming into their not-so-safe house, she needed a weapon.
His hand closed around her shoulders. “You stay by my side, okay? No one is taking you. I’ve got this worked out.”
Oh, great, wonderful to know but before he’d even finished speaking, she heard the eruption of gunfire. The fast blasts came from the back of the house.
Tina flinched.
“Two men!” Dylan called out.
“Three up front!” Rachel said at the same moment.
Devast hadn’t been lying. He had found them. Trailed them? But they’d been so careful when they’d left the hotel. They’d switched vehicles, left false trails... “How did he do it? How did he track us?” Even if he’d had a trace on the phone call, he shouldn’t have been there so quickly. It took time to triangulate signals and then to actually get an attack force to the right location.
But his team was already here. He didn’t have to wait for a lock on the phone.
Devast shouldn’t have been able to find them.
Unless...
Tina’s eyes widened. The GPS trackers. The trackers implanted in the agents. If he’d accessed the EOD system, then Devast could have found Drew—and through him, Tina—by following those tracking signals.
Rachel was returning fire to their attackers. So was Dylan. Instead of joining the firefight, Drew was trying to pull Tina down the narrow hallway. She dug in her heels, then she ducked when a bullet whipped by her. She fell to the floor and her hands slapped against the hard wood.
Tina looked up. Drew had dropped with her. She met his stare even as a cold knot twisted in her belly. “You said that Devast had hacked into Syd’s system?” Just months before, the EOD computer system had come under attack. Agent intel had been compromised.
They’d thought the leak had been controlled but...